Australian Prime Minister accused Putin of czarist ambitions

Before the G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to "recreate the lost glories of tsarism or the old Soviet Union".

According to The Financial Times, Abbott put forward the new accusations against Russia and its president during a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron in Canberra.

Abbott, in particular, said that four Russian warships off the coast of Queensland (Australian state, where the summit is to be held), fits into the scheme of "assertive" behavior of Moscow aimed at "intimidation" of Ukraine and the Russian aircraft invasion in the airspace of Japan.

"Russia would be so much more attractive if it was aspiring to be a superpower for peace and freedom and prosperity," said Abbott. According to the Australian TV channel ABC, the minister tried to make this point to Putin during their brief meeting at the APEC Summit in Beijing.

Abbott also promised to ask Putin questions about Malaysian Boeing shot down over Donbas. "I'm going to tell Putin that the dead Australians were killed by the rebels, backed by Russia, supplying them with weapons," said the Prime Minister.

In the crashed plane there were 298 people, 38 of them were the citizens of Australia. The passenger aircraft was allegedly shot down by a missile fired from the territory controlled by pro-Russian militants.

Abbott and Putin met last weekend. According to the presidential press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, during the conversation, the parties did not use "hard words" and discussed bilateral relations and the situation in Syria, Ukraine and Iran.

The administration of the Australian Prime Minister said that Abbott has demanded an apology from Putin and compensation for downed Boing. As reported in the Guardian newspaper, as an example Abbott reminded an incident when the Iranian passenger aircraft was mistakenly shot down with a missile from the American ship in 1988.

It is to be recalled that in October Abbott also promised to "shirt-front" with Putin.